To my parents generation, December 7th will
always be considered THE day that'll live
in infamy, but with all due respect, among
those of us who grew up in the sixties, ears
glued to cheap transistor radios mass-produced
by our friends, the Japanese, eagerly listening
to the exuberantly jubilant sounds manufactured
by four young musicians hailing from an obscure
English port city, December 8th might well
better qualify for that sad sobriquet for
a fair percentage of OUR generation...

I don't follow football. Never have. For
that reason, I didn't suffer the ignominy
of having Howard Cosell break the tragic
and shocking news of John Lennon's murder
to me 23 years ago today. But that doesn't
mean I can't remember exactly how I found
out the terrible news, because nearly a quarter
century later, yes, I do indeed recall it
vividly...

We lived in Troy, N.Y. at the time. Lynn
was off in the bedroom, while I was on the
living room couch, reading. The book in question
was the last issue in the last volume of
what was then the most recent of the deluxe
Russ Cochran EC Reprint sets, TWO FISTED
TALES. It may well've been the very last
story, too--I'm not entirely sure. I DO know
it was a George Evans WW1 bi-plane epic (what
else?), and, not unusually, I had the radio
on. The particular station I was tuned to,
Q104, had a regular feature that commenced
each weeknight at 11 o'clock. They'd spin
a brand new album in it's entirety, pausing
only to flip the disc, maybe say a few words,
and run a few commercials. Naturally, I habitually
tuned in to see if I had any interest in
that night's feature, and if I did, well,
then let the tapes roll! Of course, if I
wanted to maintain the integrity of the music,
I had to be at the ready when a side was
about to finish, finger ever at the ready
to pause my home-made recording.

That's where I was about 11:15 on the night
of December 8th, 1980--poised to hit the
proper button as the first side of that night's
spotlight album--the double disc, "Fleetwood
Mac Live"--came to a conclusion. I was
just about to pause when the disc jockey
suddenly came on, his voice noticeably quivering,
and instead of reading off a list of the
tracks he'd just played as per standard custom,
he emotionally delivered the devastating
news. Stunned, I immediately called out to
Lynn, and she joined me within seconds. We
both just sat there,listening, shocked and
upset--very, very upset...

I let that tape run, and somewhere in this
house, in what I laughingly call the archives--but
others might instead refer to as a monument
to semi-organized clutter--the very words
I heard that sad evening informing me of
Lennon's senseless murder still exists, buried
in between the sides of that Fleetwood Mac
album (which the radio people kept playing--what
ELSE were they going to do? After they got
the initial bulletin out, words had seemed
to fail them..). I may've actually listened
to it one time--the very next day, I think--but
I know I haven't ever since. The ending to
that Evans illustrated aerial dogfight would
have to wait as well, as we rushed to the
TV for cold confirmation of the era-ending
events that had taken place outside the Dakota
only hours earlier, and with our worse fears
confirmed, we both just sorta, well, broke
down. And for many days afterwards, just
felt empty and numb...

I never met John Lennon. He wasn't a part
of my immediate family. And yeah, I know
you're not supposed to get so emotional over
the passing of some far-off celebrity, and,
in general, that's always been the case around
here. Okay, maybe you shed that single sympathy
tear when you receive the news that a long-time
favorite like, say, Bob Hope, has irrevocably
moved on. But Lennon was so much more to
the members of my generation, and his shocking
death at such a comparatively young age--at
the hands of a stupendously deranged admirer,
yet!--was a cold bucket of water thrown in
the face every one of us who had sat transfixed
in front of their television sets watching
the Ed Sullivan Show on a cold February night
not even two decades earlier. Selfishly,
we all knew at that precise instant, the
possibility of a bona fide Beatles reunion
was over--gone forever--but so was a talented
man, a father, a husband, an artist. It may
not've seemed like the best choice of words
at the time, but Paul may well've said it
best by simply saying, that, yup, you bet,
it most surely WAS a drag...

23 years later. Whew. When you consider the
four individual Beatles were only on America's
collective radar from 1964 up through that
awful Monday in 1980--just a couple months
shy of 17 years total--and now it's been
even longer since their rarefied ranks were
mindlessly decimated, it's an unenviable
testament as to the relentless march of time.
Turns out the lads from Liverpool were only
human, after all...

I know this is a patently sappy way to wrap
this little tribute up--as I sit here, with
the heart-rendingly ironic strains of "(Just
Like) Starting Over" hauntingly emanating
in the background--but in so many other ways,
the Beatles have proven themselves to be
truly immortal. Pausing once a year to mark
this terrible anniversary is just one of
the sadder ways, unfortunately...